Next-gen OLED screens to have touch built-in

Slim, eco-friendly and now touchable, too

OLED-display.net is reporting that German scientists have created a new type of OLED display with touch sensitive technology built in.

Researchers from the high tech Fraunhofer IPMS Institute will be unveiling the screen at the fabulously named 4th Global Plastic Electronics conference in Berlin later this month.

This is big news because unlike the current touch screens found on iPhones or sat navs, the new touch OLED doesn't need an additional touch-sensitive layer: the touch controls are built in to the display itself.

A touch exaggerated

OLED screens are already the favourite choice to replace LCD technology, thanks to their faster response time, lack of viewing angle restrictions and not needing a heavy, power-hungry backlight. OLEDs can even be made into flexible, transparent screens.

The new development promises to enable everything from ultra-lightweight laptops to cheap touch-sensitive mobile phones.

Jörg Amelung, head of organic materials and systems at the Fraunhofer IPMS is particularly excited: "The touch function generates a completely new feeling of light. It´s like magic: turning on the light simply by a hand movement."

Er, calm down, Jörg. It's a nice advance but not really the subject for a prime-time, one-hour TV special starring David Blaine. Unless perhaps it features Blaine being force-fed crushed up touch OLEDs until his stomach ruptures. We'd watch that on a fuzzy old CRT.